1.

9Postcolonial Theory

This theory looks at or addresses the fol- the rise of nationalist and/or nativist
lowing: discourse that resisted colonialism,
and other forms of resistance;
• colonialism's strategies of representa- the psychological effects of colonial-
tion of the native; ism on both the colonizer and the col-
• the epistemological underpinnings onized; and
of colonial projects (colonial histo- the role of apparatuses such as educa-
ries, anthropology,area studies, car- tion, English literature, historiogra-
tography); phy, and art and architecturein the
• the feminization,marginalization, and 'execution' of the colonial project.
dehumanization of the 'native';

Postcolonial theory explores how colonial ideology, strategies of represen-

tation, and racial prejudicesare coded into the literary texts, and how
these informed concrete political, military, and social 'operations' in
colonialism.
During the 1970sand through the 1980s,the dominant form of postco-
Ionia] criticism was colonial discourse analysis. This borrowed from and
was influenced by new research areas and theories: gay and lesbian,gen-
der and feminist, African American, poststructuralist, psychoanalytic, and
others. Adapting approaches from these new pedagogic and critical
'approaches', colonial discourse analysis looked at the ways in which
 Ionia'ism, Postcoloniality, Postcolonialism

systems of knowledge enabled oppression. It began with the assumption

that was not only a system of military, economic, and c;ocial
oppression,but also a discourse about the domination of another race.
That is, there was a discmrsive (literary, linguistic, repreqontational, ideo-
logical) colnponent of n)aterial domination. F,ffcdivcly, colonial discou rse
analysis attennpts an unlnasking of the colonial ideology in literary and
cultural works produced by Iiuropean countrieq. It examined discourse—
the svstemnof thought that allowed certain knowledgcq, ideas, and opin-
ions to be expressed while disallowing and silencing otherc—as the bacis
of material oppression. What this meant was that discourse and language
were seen as coding actual political and material practices of colonial
oppression. It saw literature as the site of such a colonial domination over
native cultures. Discourse analysis was thus concerned with the linguistic
expressionof colonial practices and power relations rather than with
actual historical and institutional conditions of capitalism, geographical
acquisitions, or market forces. Colonial discourse analysis therefore turned
to the colonial text rather than the colonial context.
Unfortunately,there is a tendency to ignore specifichistorical condi-
tions and contexts when theorizing about colonialismin much postcolo-
nial studies. Selective reading of programmatically chosen passages from
isolated texts (and not even the entire text comes in for close scrutiny) is
then built up into a huge edifice (Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, Dipesh
Chakrabarty are all guilty of this methodological 'sleight of hand'). Thus
empires as diverse as the English, French, and Spanish are conflated in
such readings of 'coloniality'. What is even more distressing is the focus
on the colonial dimension of European modernity or Enlightenment with-
out an equal attention to the other aspects of the age. Frederick Cooper,
one of the few who draws attention to this selectivemode of reading in
postcolonial studies, puts it best:
sixteenth century,
One can pluck a text of a narrative from Spanish America in the
century, or from a
or from the slave colonies of the West Indies in the eighteenth
the Gold Coast, and
moderately prosperous twentieth-century cocoa planter in
(2005:405)
derive a lesson that conveys a generalizable meaning.

more and more

Comparative literature grew as a discipline to include visibility
writers from formerly colonized nations. With the increasing
criticism also
and respectability of non-European writings, postcolonial
need to be
argued that European aesthetic models or modes of reading African
Asian or
abandoned, since such approaches cannot do justice to
A whole new
writings derived from and influenced by their own cultures.
20 Postcolonial Literatum

necessary to analyse 'Third

reading paradignÄwaq therefore deemed 1995)proposed that writ_
Such (aq
criticiql)) in Boehmer
World' writing.
not mere imitations or adaptations
ings from other eoltuvalcontextswere from Africa or Asia often
traditionq and texts. Such works
of Wegtern
forms and traditions, recasting
transgress, modify, re-design Western
their own native traditions. postcolonial today is aware
them within
Rushdie as a literary
of her institutional/celebritystatus—witness
Salman
figure and Gayatri Spivak as a critic—but
also self-consciously seeks to
literature and criticism.
create politically relevant and socially committed
Postcolonialcriticsof the 1980sand 1990sprefer to look at the differ-
Rao (India), rather
encesbetween, say, Wilson Harris (Caribbean) and Raja
than propose that both writers speak of a universal human condition.
the increasinginfluence of postcolonial studies and postcolonial
theory (especiallyafter Edward Said's monumental Orientalism,1978),
criticshave focused on how colonial writers underscored racial difference
and imperialpower. This kind of criticism looked at the ways in which
literature enabled,empowered, and reinforced the empire. Works such as
EllekeBoehmer's(1995),for instance, underscored the fact that all litera-
ture was ideologically constrained by its geographical and political
contexts.10Postcolonial criticism, in Bhabha's (unusually lucid) words,
'bears witness to the unequal and uneven forces of cultural representation
involvedin the contest for political and social authority within the mod-
ern world order' (1992:437).
It is also true that, more often than not, postcolonial or 'Third World'
texts are evaluated and read almost exclusively for their politics, ideolo-
gies, and 'value' as sources of 'authentic' information. Little attention is
paid to the aesthetic dimensions of such texts—an ironic situation where
so-calledimaginativeliterature that thrives on aestheticizing the world is
treated only as political tract or opinion. We need to understand that 'the
intermeshingof sociopoliticswith artistic and intellectual expression'
(Bahri2003:11) is central to postcolonial writing. Evaluating these texts as
merely socio-politicaldocuments is to treat them as commentaries (on
poverty, caste, oppression, and other accepted 'Third World' and
nial conditions), demanding they be 'testimonials' postcolo-
(ibid.: 160) without art-
istry.Denying them status as literary texts or
artistic genres would mean
relegating them to the status of anything that
is
directory?).The burden of the postcolonial 'written' (say, a telephone
Bahri accuratelydescribesas text to be 'authentic' (what
'subjugation of story to
ethnographicallyaccurateand information', 201)'
purpose: to tell stories, to be full of information often detracts its other
that haunts much imaginative and artistic. It is this problem
postcolonial writing
today.
 Colonialism, Postcoloniality, Postcolonialism 21

add ress-
In the 1990s,the scope of postcolonial Qtudiesmoved beyond
relating
ing ' nnird World' culture« and colonial hictorieq to include issues;
to the 'llnird World' within 'l'irst World' nationq: immigrants, refugees,
and the UK. T'his
blacks/llispanics and other ethnic minorities;in the (JUS
marked a shift in thinking about the nature of the postcolonial itself.
Including minorities under the rubric of 'poqt(010nial' ind icated a bridge-
building l»ehveenfornu»rlycolonized and oppresc,cd people in Asian/
African/SouthAnwrican nations and socially subordinated and marginal-
ized races/colnnlunitiesin ' VirstWorld' nations. Diasporic peoples who
were subject to and systemic marginalization even within 'First
World'nations saw themselves as colonized. Further, native peoples in
Canada,Australia, the USAbegan to argue that indigenous peoples the
world over had been colonized by the white settler races. The debate
broadened the purview of postcolonial studies to include indigenous
peoples and their experience of colonialism. As we can see, postcolonial-
ism has now become a term to discuss the problems, and narratives, of
much of the world's marginalized classes. Jenny Sharpe states this in
unambiguousterms: 'When used as a descriptive term for the United
States,postcolonial does not name its past as a white settler colony or its
emergenceas a neocolonial power; rather it designates the presence of
racial minorities and "Third World" immigrants.' (1995: 181. Also see
Sharpe, 2000).
RobertYoung (2001)proposes (the rather awkward) 'tricontinentalism'
as a term for postcolonialism, to suggest the commonality between Asia,
Africaand South America, arguing that 'colonialism' has not fully disap-
peared and therefore, 'postcolonialism'does not make much sense.
This criticismalso looked at the ways in which native people reading
such literary texts assimilated Western ways of looking at non-white races.
Thatis, postcolonialcriticismlooked at the manner in which non-white
racesimbibed values, stereotypes, and prejudices of the West through the
consumptionof imperial texts. Such a critical approach embodies three
modes of reading, according to John McLeod:

• a re-readingof English literary texts to examine their methods of

representations, assumptions, and prejudices that reinforced impe-
rial power relations
• analysing the construction of colonial subjects in these writings, and
the ways in which natives resisted such constructions
• discussingthe ways in which colonial subjects 'wrote back', that is,
responded to, resisted, and overturned imperial power relations to
the empire (2000:23—29)
22 Postcolonial Literatum

Postcolonial theory can be said to have originated in the mid4Wentioth

century texts of l*ran7 1"anon,Ainu{Ceqaire and Albert Memmi. Anti.
colonial writing, nationalistn, reQqtance,antiUeqternization, and cultural
identity in colonized nations have been integral to the writings (and
speeches) of K'wameNktunnah, Gandhi, Nyererc, Kenneth Kaunda
Amilcar Cabral and other leader« from colonized nations from the end of
the nineteenth century. 1lu)ugl) studies of imperialism have been under_
taken much earlier (notably in works such as V.I. Lenin's Imperialism,the
HighestStagcof Capitalis"l,1916),it is with Fanon that studies of the cul_
tural and psychological effects of colonialism really developed. Mannoni's
work on the 'psychology of colonialism' (1956)was a central text in this
area. This section provides a brief survey of postcolonial theory (postcolo-
nial theory's imbrication with feminist and queer theory are discussed in
the chapters on 'Gender' and 'Queer').
Ashcroft et al (1989:5—6)characterize writing emerging from the
once-colonized nations as postcolonial. They identify three major charac-
teristics of this postcolonial writing:

(a) nne silencing and marginalization of the postcolonial voice by the

imperial centre.
(b) The abrogation of the imperial centre within the text.
(c) The active appropriation of the language and culture of that
centre.

Franz Fanon argued that colonialism drives the colonized to madness

by rejecting any individuality-claims of the native. This was achieved by
the emphasis on psychic difference, where the native's psyche was repeat-
edly represented, savaged, and 'treated' as inferior. Fanon points out that
the European descriptions of the native are invariably couched in zoological
terms, emphasizing his 'reptilian' motions, the stink of the native quarter,
of foulness and bestiality. The universal category of 'Man' now begins to
mean 'white man'. Eventually,the native also admits loudly the supremacy
of the white man. Fanon argues that the white man comes to stand in for
the father. The child cannot associate himself with others of his community
or his family with a nation. Jn the colonial context, the native community
and the nation are both controlled by the white man. The colonizer thus
becomes the father, and the colonized the child who has to obey the 'law
of the father'.
After years of unreality, the native discovers this reality and transforms
it into the pattern of his customs, into the practice of violence and into his
plan for freedom. When the native can't fight the colonizers,
the violence
turns against his own people to work off their
hatred. The development Of
 Postcolonialism

1.10Franz fanon

One of the pioneer thinkerc on colo- white man/maqter. ptJtqon 'white

nialism in worke such ac 'It'd masks'
of fhc Earth and Black Skin, Whitc ( •oloniali«m, argues Fanon, projects
Masks,Fanon argued that colonia- itself aq celfborn and tho origin of
licm dehumani7ed the native. everything. Nationaliqt consciousneqq
process "'ae so thorough that the ariqeq ae a counter to this. This anti-
black man can see himself only as the colonial nationalism achieves solidar-
black (mirror) image of the white ity between the dicparate classes and
man. The white man is the master, groups of the colony.Such a nationalist
and represents an object that is to be consciousness and literature embodies
teared and desired. The black therefore a 'negritude', a pan-African conscious-
tries to be more like the (desirable) ness and solidarity.

violence among the colonized people will be proportionate to the violence

exercisedby the colonialists. Fanon argues that tribal feuds help relieve
the tensions of the colonized. By using all his force the native tries to per-
suade himselfthat colonisationdoes not exist, that his and his tribe's
history goes on as before.
Fanon suggested a 'national literature', perhaps a negritudethat would
enable the development of a national consciousness. The native strength-
ens the inhibitions, which contain his aggressiveness by drawing on his
own myths. Myth and magic integrate the individual into the history of
the district or the tribe. Likewise, the ecstatic dances of the tribe/native are
a means of exhausting their emotional sensibility. The circle of the dance is
a permissivecircle:it protects and permits. The colonizer, however, attri-
butes the native's assertion of a distinct identity and a concern with pre-
serving some elements of his national ethos/existence to religious, magical,
and fanatical behaviour.
Nationalist consciousness arises as a counter to colonialism. This anti-
colonialnationalism achieves solidarity between the disparate classes and
groups of the colony.This may help prevent and overcome the cultural
and psychologicaldamage of colonialism. The birth of nationalist parties
in colonized countries is contemporaneous with the formation of an intel-
lectual elite engaged in trade. This elite attaches great importance to orga-
nization. However, Fanon argues that the nationalist parties exhibit
elitism—they rarely direct their propaganda towards the country's masses.
In a spontaneous nationalist movement, the individual 'stands aside in
favour of the community'. The progress of this nationalist spirit is charted
thus by Fanon:
24

regionalism in
Tribalism in I he colonial
in the phage, ( 106g: 02)

"'as preqcientenough to cupgeqt in hie,essay 'l ho Pit

anon, h0\eever, nationhood had been attained, tho
of National Consciousne«' that, once ruin than anything else. Its 'cow.
nu»re
'national middle clasq'would cau.se
'unpreparedne«', and 'laziness' will turn national conc,ciousness
ard'ee',
into an 'empty fÅhell'(1063:121—163).
the Orient (Asia, the East
Fd\A'ardSaid argues that knowledge about
knowledge for the sake of knowl_
and non-Europeancultures) was never
fact colonial practices (polit_
edge: it preceded actual colonial practices. In
knowledge. Colonial
iCal,economic)necessitatedthe production of such
power bagedon Orientalist knowledge does not rely on physical force as
much as it does on the consent of the native. Also, these texts and discourses
pres,entthe imperialist programme as natural and necessary. The native
agrees to be colonized when he accepts the colonial stereotypes of himself.
Said demonstrates how a range of texts—literary,philological, philo-
sophical,administrative, ethnographic—functioned as the lens through
which the Orient was viewed preliminary to being ruled. Stereotypes—
the ignoranceof the natives, their effeminacy and indolence, their over-
sexed nature, their essential untrustworthiness, the superiority of the
Europeanand his knowledge—helped justify and even necessitate West-
em presence as the masculine, strong, and rational protector in various
guises and roles —ofthe protector (police, army), educator (teacher), admini-
strator (bureaucracyand political presence), and saviour (missionary).
Said suggests that we need a contrapuntal perspective—inorder to
think through and interpret together experiences that are discrepant, each
with its own agenda, pace of development, internal formation, and
coherence—and a system of external relationships that coexist and inter-
act with one another. Said is thus suggesting that we abandon a unified
approach that goes by the master narrative, and adopt a technique where
marginal and apparently contradictorynarratives battle. What Said pro-
poses,inshort,isadisputationalreadingprocess,where theauthor's 'given'
must be seen in the light of texts/experienceswhich are effaced.
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak rejects the idea that
there is a recoverable
pre-colonialpast. The native past has been so
thoroughly interpreted and
reinterpreted by colonialismthat it has
become unrecognizable. What one
can do is to understand the
'worlding'
through which the local population of the 'Third World', the process
pean version of reality for its was 'persuaded' to accept the Euro-
own modes of understanding
ing its social world. and structur-
 23

j." Edward Said and 'Orfenta(tsm/

Edward Said inaugurated the postcolo- deale prim ipally, not with a correqpon-
nial fie)d "'ith (1978). dcncv•between ()rientaliqm and ()riont,
beet definition of 'orientalism' comee but with the internal conqiqtoncy of Ori-
from Said himself: 'a way of coming to entaliqm and itQideaq about the ()rient
terme with the Orient that is baced on deepite or beyond any correspon-
the Orient's special place in European dence, or lack thereof, with a "real" Ori-
+Je«ternExperience the Orient has ent'. (1—3,5)
helped to define Europe (or the West) as Orientalism is this production of
its contrasting image, idea, personality, ideas, knowledge, and opinions about
experience ... Orientalism is a style of the Orient—ideaq which were prelimi-
thought based upon ontological and nary to governance, military conquest
epistemological distinction made and political control over the geograph-
between "the Orient" and (most of the ical territory of the Orient. Orientalist
time) "the Occident" . the phenome- knowledge came first, political control
non of Orientalismas I study it here la ter.

It is impossible to recover the 'authentic' voice of the subaltern (a terrn

used to signify the oppressed class).Spivak'swell-known (and controver-
sial) argument is that the subaltern cannot speak for himself/herself
because the very structure of colonialismprevents this speaking.How-
ever, Spivak argues that the intellectualprojectmust try to make visible
the position of the marginalized. The subaltern must be 'spoken for' (that
is, represented), but not romanticised. There is also the warning that the
term/category 'subaltern' is neither universally applicable, nor homoge-
neous (though this, unfortunately, has happened).
Spivak suggests that the appropriation of the marginalizedas part of
postcolonialstudies and Western academies relegates them to perpetual
marginality.The distinction between centre and margin is retained, even
strengthened by the 'Third Worldism' of postcolonial studies. What
Spivakis suggesting is that the institutionalization of marginality is a dan-
gerous trend. The Weses longing for its Other figures in the institutional
investmentsit makes in the form of postcolonialism.
Spivak insists that postcolonial theory must recognize the heterogene-
ity of postcolonial cultures. Rather than a monolithic homogenizing
com-
Saidianversion of the Orient and Orientalism,Spivak argues for a
that
plexity of form, full of differences and contradictions. Spivak suggests
admitted.
the variations among experiences of oppression must be first
World' cul-
Spivak seeks to understand the methods through which 'Third
their
tural texts may be admitted into Western academy without blunting of
study
criticalposition. To this end Spivak argues for a transnational
 26 Postcolonial Literatt'm

1.12Gayatti Chakravorty Spivak

because the 'double bind' of
Known for harne•sing deconqtructive herself and patriarchy Qilenceher,
col
CTitica)thoughU feminism, and Marx- colonialism
intellectual project must seek to
ism for postcolonialpurposes, but not any the position of
CO
necessarilv for lucid prose, Gavatn Spi- make vicible the margin-
vak Avalon Foundation Professor of alized. Interestingly, she also argues
that the appropriation of the marginal- ni
Humanities at Columbia University, is
also well known as the translator of ized into 'disciplines' such as postcolo- tr
Jacques Derrida's first major work, Of nial studies condemns them to perpetual
Grammatology, into English (1976), marginality, always the subject of some-
Mahashweta Devi's works from Bangla body else's discourse. Western femi-
into English, and a critical watchdog of nism, like postcolonial studies, assumes
the state of the humanities in the age of the role of an authoritative commenta-
global capital. In one of her more pro- tor on its 'Other'—the non-white
vocative essays, 'Can the Subaltern woman. The Asian or African woman is
Speak?', Spivak worries about the 'ventriloquised' , where a voice is ascribed
agency of the subaltern/oppressed to to her by the First World commentator.
represent themselves. She argues that Spivak also warns against a homogeni-
since the subaltern cannot speak for zation of postcolonial cultures.

culture, where single-author studies are substituted with non-Western

texts, non-Western languages, popular cultural forms, and critical theory.
Spivak's main contribution has been to use deconstructive thought for
postcolonial theorizing. She seeks to reveal the manner in which colonial
texts undermine their status and logic. Focusing on minor characters and
subplots, Spivak is able to reveal the racial biases that constitute even
apparently humanist texts. This process places and reads canonical texts
in alien contexts, by demonstrating how these texts reveal a contradictory
meaning/subtext when wrenched out of their conventional narratives.
Spivak points out that during imperialism,the British assumed the
authority and prerogative to speak for the oppressed native woman (espe-
cially in the colonial discourse on Sati). The construction of the oppressed
native woman was necessary to justify the presence of the modernizing
British man. The native woman apparently 'called out' for liberation. For
Spivak, this was the ascription of a true voice to the native woman. In real-
ity, the voice of the woman is 'ventriloquised', or spoken for. The national-
ists also resurrected the voice of the native woman for their own ends, but,
as Spivak points out, the voice of the woman is effaced in the discourse Of
both nationalism and colonialism: she is only spoken for.
Homi K. Bhabha, the third most visible postcolonial theorist after Said
and Spivak,argues that Edward Said's reading of the
colonial encounter is
unidirectional:it only treats colonial authority as
proceeding from the
 Postcolonh(ity,

colonizer to the colonized. Said's argunu•nt alco that the identi-

ties of colonizer and colonized are fixed and Qtable.Bhabha
aqqortqthat
colonial discourse is actually conflictual, ambivalent, and riven
with con-
tradictions. contradictory psychic relation« between the colonizer and
colonized —moving, for Bhabha, between fear and decire for the ()thcr
prevents any stable, unchanging identities for the colonizer and the colcr
nized. relationship between the two is onc of negotiation and
transaction, and not a one-directional will to power as Said implies.

1.13Homi K, Bhabha

Known often for some difficult prose tional social reality' (1995:1). Bhabha
and a wide range of theoretical—philo- argues that what mediates between
sophical roots, Bhabha's work on the Theory and politics is writing, where
stereotype, hybridity, and the narration 'writing' includes cultural exercises
of a nation has set the agenda for post- such as novels, cinema, and music.
colonial thinkers across the world. Bhabha also argues that the mimicry
Bhabha, Professor of English at Har- and production of stereotypes and
vard, underlines the 'growing aware- hybrids in colonial discourse reflected
ness that, despite the certainty with not the strengths but rather the weak-
which historians speak of the "origins" nesses of colonialism—colonialism
of nation as a sign of the "modernity" of needed stereotypes to reinforce itself.
society,the cultural temporality of the Mimicry was resistance and subversion
nation inscribes a much more transi- on the part of the native.

Bhabha argues that identities are possible only in differentialrela-

tions and displacement. Identity for Bhabha constantly moves between
positions, displacing others and being displaced in turn. The colonial
regime achieves power through the creation of set stereotypes such as
those of the sly treacherous native, the noble savage, or the lustful native.
Bhabha argues that the stereotype is an indication not of the stable and
supreme power of the colonizer, but rather of the fractured nature of the
colonial power. What is already known or established has to be endlessly
confirmed through repetitions. For Bhabha, this need for repetition
points to a lack of certainty about the stereotypes, which indicates their
essentially unstable and constructed nature. The colonizer can construct
identity
his identity only through the stereotype of the Other. That is, the
the oppo-
of the colonial master is dependent upon the relationship with
of the
sitional native/Other. The stereotypes thus help the formation
unstable and
colonizer's identity while simultaneously rendering it
dependent.
 28 Postcolonial Literatum

of colonial relations indic

The stereot.Y'e and the 'fetFsh/phol»ia'

and decire of the colonizer for wholene«qand qimi,

• the affirmation
larity "'ith the native; and the lack and the different
• the simultaneousfear and anxiety at/of
native.
in its attitudes because it both
Simply put, colonial discourse is anffivalent
native and yet fears (is phobic
desires (fetishizes)similarity/unity with the
ambivalent nature is best
of) the "'holly Other nature of the native.
seen in the contradictory representations of the colonized. The native is
simultaneously beyond comprehension (the stereotype of the 'inscrutable
native') and yet completely knowable/controllable as the subject of
nial power (in the stereotype of the native as an innocent child, or as a
vulnerable woman). The colonial relation is full of such contradictions and
conflicts.
In his concept of mimicry Bhabha further analyses the fractured nature
of the colonialcondition. Colonial power requires that the natives adopt
and internalizethe forms and habits of the colonial master: the native
should mimic the master. The entire colonial mission is to transform the
native into 'one like us'—a copy of the colonizer. For Bhabha the mirnicry
is a defence,fraught with the resistance of the native. The native is in a
position to return the gaze of the colonial master, since he is now camou-
flaged. A reversal has been achieved through the mimicry of the colonizer
by the colonized. Mimicry is now active resistance: it achieves something
other than the purpose intended by the colonizer.On the one hand the
colonialpower tries to recast the native as one of themselves, and on the
other tries to remember and reiterate the irreducible difference of the
Other.Mimicry thus produces a subject who reflects a distorted image of
he colonial master. In the attempt to produce the same-as-me, the colonial
>owerinduces a distorted self-identity,a reiteration of the difference.
t is produced is the hybrid (the same and not-the-same native). For
3habhathen, the resistanceof the native is the result of the failure of the
:olonial power to effectively reproduce and extend itself.
For Bhabha, colonial presence is ambivalent, split between the two
yositions:its appearanceas authority and original and its articulation as
•epetitionand difference. This split is the failure of colonial discourse and
he site of potential resistance by the colonized. Hybridity and the third
pace, the result of the split and negotiation between colonizer and colo-
mized,which is 'neither the one nor the other' is
thus the point where
rnti-colonialresistance is first articulated.